EN ROUTE TO ZAMFARA– SYNDICATE STEALTH JEEP
The drive took eight hours.
The jeep hummed under low-frequency suppression to avoid satellite scans. Drones buzzed
overhead — neutralized by a jamming pulse that Timi ran remotely from HQ.
Briggs drove.
Ikenna sat beside him, reviewing old files.
"You ever think," Briggs said suddenly, "we're chasing shadows that were buried for a reason?"
Ikenna didn't look up. "Ghost buried too many things without permission."
Briggs grunted. "He was strategic."
"He was unhinged."
Briggs said nothing after that.
---
MEMORY FARM – PERIMETER BREACHAt the edge of the sand-swept ruin, the mirage dome flickered as Ikenna approached with the
neural relay.
He stepped through — into instant silence.
No wind. No heat. Just... stillness.
Drift lay exactly where the schematics indicated — beneath a canopy of rusted cables, his body
wired like a circuit.
Ikenna crouched. "Briggs, status?"
"Perimeter holding. Drone activity zero. You've got ten minutes."
Ikenna activated the neuroleech.
It hummed. Then latched onto Drift's neck.
Instantly, Ikenna's vision blurred.
Then blacked out.
---
He was standing in a memory city. Fog-covered. Dead quiet.
A familiar voice echoed.
> "Why do you want to know, Ikenna?"
He turned.
Ghost stood before him. Young. Sharp-eyed. Unbroken.
But not real.
This was a memory echo.
Ikenna said, "I need access to Obi 9."
Ghost stared at him.
> "Obi 9 was never supposed to exist. You understand that?"
"I understand we have a Reclaimer unit quoting your old codes and hunting our people."
> "Then you're already too late.What is it, Ghost?"
The memory shimmered. Skipped.
> "Obi 9 is not a weapon. It's not even a program."
Then the walls cracked.
Ghost's voice distorted:
> "It's a person."
---
Back in Reality – Drift's Body
The neuroleech blinks red.
Ikenna gasped and ripped the relay free.
"Briggs!"
"Still here. What did you see?"
"Obi 9… isn't code. It's a child."
Briggs's face paled. "What?"
"Ghost cloned someone. Or rebuilt them. And called them Obi 9."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"But someone else does," Ikenna said, eyes hardening. "Kreed."
—SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER – KREED'S LAB
The child floated inside the stasis chamber.
Kreed watched the monitors with the cold detachment of a man reading a machine manual.
But behind his back, he clenched one fist.
Obi 9 stirred.
Her eyes fluttered.
Then it opened.
"Where… am I?"
Kreed stepped forward.
"You're home," he said softly. "And it's time you remembered who you were."
Her eyes began to glow.
Data danced across her pupils.
Memories. Commands. Protocols.
"Target?"
Kreed nodded.
"Fog Syndicate. Primary: Ikenna."
---
BACK AT HQ – LAGOS
Timi's analysis confirmed the worst.
"Facial markers. Genetic sequencing. Memory fragments. Ghost didn't create Obi 9. He
resurrected someone."
Briggs leaned in. "Who?Timi pulled up the image.
Ikenna stared.
The child's face.
Frozen in stasis.
The same face that had haunted him since the Break Room Massacre.
His sister.
Amaka.
"No," Ikenna whispered. "That's impossible. She died."
Timi's voice cracked. "Not entirely. Ghost recovered partial DNA from the wreckage. And used it
as a base template."
"She wasn't a soldier," Ikenna snapped. "She was twelve!"
Briggs whispered, "And now she's a weapon."
---
Scene: Obi 9 in Motion – Unmarked Train through Niger
Obi 9 stood among unconscious guards.
All breathing.
She hadn't killed them.
She'd disabled them perfectly.
Precisely.
Her programming was flawless.
But inside her — under the code, beyond the neural firewalls — was a memory.
Of a hand.Reaching for her.
Before fire took her family.
Before everything burned.
She pressed her hand against the train window as the fields blurred by.
Whispers filtered through her head.
"Ikenna…"
She didn't know why that name mattered.
But she felt something shift.
Like something inside her wanted to fight back.
---
IKENNA'S QUARTERS – Lagos HQ
Ikenna stared at the holo of his sister.
Then at the Reclaimer movement patterns.
"It's not just the Reclaimer," he muttered. "It's Obi 9. She's pulling them."
Briggs crossed his arms. "Then why hasn't she attacked yet?"
Ikenna said nothing.
Because the answer was obvious.
She was remembering.
And if even a piece of the child he knew was still in there, it meant they had a shot.
But only if they reached her first.
Before Kreed flipped the final switch.---
KREED'S LAB
Kreed stood before Obi 9's pod.
Behind him, multiple Reclaimer units powered up.
The Lazarus Seed was spreading — old programs, dead codes, sleeper agents.
All waking up.
He looked at her one last time.
"You were always the key," he whispered. "The perfect union. Fog and flame. Blood and wire."
Then he pressed the activation sequence.
---
SYNDICATE HQ – Lagos | 02:12 AM
She was watching them.
Not from the walls. Not from any camera.
From inside.
Obi 9's consciousness spread like tendrils through the GhostNet — the underground digital
bloodstream of the Syndicate, built in the early days as a failsafe. A myth among their
operatives. Now, it was alive again. Because she was.
Timi burst into the operations hub, hair wild and hands trembling over his console.
"She breached the South Node!" he shouted. "She's scanning for tactical data. Not destroying
— learning."
Ikenna stood with arms folded, eyes locked to the ghost trace on the screen.
"She's not here to wipe us," he murmured. "She's trying to remember something."
Briggs growled from behind, "Or she's mapping our weaknesses before she kills us."No," Ikenna said quietly. "If she wanted us dead, we'd be dead."
Timi looked up. "Then what the hell does she want?"
Ikenna looked down at the paused security footage of the girl in the cryopod.
She looked lost.
Scared.
"I think… She wants to know who she is."
---
UNKNOWN SECTOR
Obi 9 moved through the corridors of memory like a ghost trapped in its own haunting.
The world around her was fragmented — overlapping layers of simulations and real memories.
A classroom in Makurdi. A riverbank in Jos. A ruined building in Lagos. A broken doll.
A voice echoed.
> "Get her to safety, Ikenna!"
Then fire.
Flames leapt through her memory. A wall caved in. And a hand reached for hers.
His hand.
"Ikenna…" she whispered aloud.
The simulation twitched.
Then it broke.
The Reclaimer protocols snapped into focus.
> Target acquired. Fog Director: Ikenna Okoro. Eliminate.She blinked
.
> Override conflict detected. Emotional signature mismatch.
She fell to her knees, gripping her skull.
Two voices fought inside her:
The machine.
The memory.